This weekend kicks off a Fashion Week event that was five years in the making—Full-Figured Fashion Week. Starting today and continuing through the weekend, NYC will be hosting the self described “Fat-shionistas”, showing off the latest in full-figured fashion and discussing “The State of the Curvy Community”.

I ran across an interesting article on TheDailyBeast.com, which features a full length story about the event and discusses plus size fashion frustrations with fatshionista bloggers:

Despite the growing headway fatshionistas are making into the consciousness of clothing manufacturers and designers, well-designed and high-quality choices for plus-sizes are still miniscule. “I’ll say there are more options now than there used to be, but that’s sort of like saying ‘he doesn’t hit me nearly as often as he used to.’” says Gammill [of Manolo for the Big Girl]. “I’m fat, I have money. I’m more than willing to give it in quantity to the store who will supply me with beautifully made clothes that don’t make me look like a hooker, a tranny, or someone’s bingo-playing grandma from Duluth. I would love to see Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, a big girl herself, do a ready-to-wear line that extends to the plus-sizes.” (Rodarte just won the CFDA Womenswear Designers of the year award, with clothing lines for svelte women.)

Those of us who have been on the “wrong” side of fashion are well aware of the shortcomings and poor availability of style conscious clothes in the plus size category. Wouldn’t it be nice if plus size clothing weren’t sequestered to it’s own shameful department—usually located in the far reaches of the department store—and instead mixed in with “regular” sized clothing?

I believe the biggest issue comes down to fit. Designers, need to start making clothes that actually fit women and flatter our bodies, not their designer’s distorted views of beauty.